Monday, July 18, 2016

KCRW's The Spin-Off: Sony's Steve Mosko Gives His Exit Interview

In this bonus edition of The Spin-off, we're bringing you a conversation with Steve Mosko, who until about a month ago was the chairman of Sony Pictures Television--the production studio behind a wide range of shows--including Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Community, The Goldbergs, Shark Tank, and TV stalwarts Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

Mosko had been president of Sony Pictures Television since 2001, and chairman since October 2015. He’d been at the studio in some form or another since 1992, so when he announced his departure in early June, it was a surprise to most people in the industry.

As we’ve talked about on this podcast before--more and more, broadcast networks like ABC, NBC and CBS want to produce and distribute their own shows. Since Sony doesn’t have its own broadcast network, Mosko had the difficult job of getting other networks--and cable and streaming outlets--to buy his studio’s shows. He succeeded, but as was revealed in the Sony email hack, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, he felt the TV side of Sony was frequently overshadowed by film business.

Michael Schneider recently sat down with Mosko at the Paley Center to talk about his long career in television. It was a conversation that had been on the books for weeks, but when Mosko suddenly announced his departure the day before the scheduled interview, Schneider wasn’t sure the former chairman would want to go through with it. But Mosko was still game.